


Season of Birds

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Co-workers, Gen, Light Angst, Lukas isn't into that sorry, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Game(s), Post-War, Starting Over, in which Lukas will not be Rebound Guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2018-12-01 11:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11485719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: When Est fled Archanea she wasn't sure where she was headed, but Zofia turned out to be the best of some bad options. Meanwhile, Lukas is adjusting to the post-war order in Valentia-- no easy task for someone without solid expectations of what the future even ought to be. A pegasus knight on the run from her past and a noble cut off from his roots just might be the right people in the right place at the perfect time... in one way or another.





	1. Winged River

**Author's Note:**

> I've had headcanons for years about Est ending up in Valentia-- specifically in Jesse's kingdom, as he seemed to think she was cute in FE2 and he would be an interesting change of pace for her. Well, FE15 kind of changed my mind about Jesse being Rebound Guy for Est, but FE15 also invited visual parallels between the Pegasisters and the Deliverance RGB trio. It didn't take long to wonder if the youngest and most tragic Pegasister might not be an ideal traveling companion for the youngest and most troubled of of the Deliverance trio.

_Avistym, second year of the One Kingdom_

“I guess this must be the place.”

She knew it was, of course. Zofia Castle wasn’t like anywhere else she’d seen— it rose layer on beautiful layer like a magnificent cake above the city walls and the topmost tower looked like it was scraping the clouds. 

Atropos responded with a little huff like he didn’t believe her, though. He balked as Est tried to walk him through great marble arch of the gates.

“You don’t wanna come in, huh?”

She thought about letting him go to join whatever pegasi flew wild in Valentia, but Est remembered the food situation hadn’t been so great last time she was here.

“Nope. I have to take care of you. Gotta prove I’m good at something, right?”

Est was glad she never got strong enough to trade Atropos in for a wyvern like her sisters did with their pegasi. A wyvern here would terrify people, but a pegasus could blend right in. As she led Atropos toward the heart of the castle, Est heard a strange, sad little chirp. She looked up to see a little bird up in the eaves— a pretty thing in shades of blue and white with a long forked tail. The bird looked about as tired as a bird could get.

“You look about as happy to be here as I am,” she said the to bird. She couldn’t carry on like that, though. There was one thing she needed to say when someone finally noticed her.

“My name is Est. I come from Archanea and I’m here to see the queen.”

-x-

Lukas spotted her the instant he entered the mess hall. The girl with the short fringe of rose-colored hair sat alone by the wall, pushing her spoon around a bowl of the day’s fish stew. Lukas kept an eye upon her as he was served his own bowl of stew so that he might make certain this was the young flier from Archanea and not a new recruit with a passing resemblance to her.

"Est?"

"Hello, Lukas!"

He caught the transformation of her face as she lifted her head; the bright note in her greeting didn’t ring entirely true and neither did the smile she assembled for his benefit.

"It's a pleasant surprise to find you here,” he continued as though everything were quite ordinary. “Have you come from Archanea on a diplomatic mission?"

He knew she wasn't an active knight, but at the same time it seemed... unlikely... that any envoy from Archanea's new ruler would be sitting by herself in the mess hall.

"Nope. I'm just here. I asked Queen Celica if I could sign up with the Brotherhood and she said sure and it'd be nice to have an old friend back. I've got some experience with training new recruits so I think I'll be pretty useful here even if I'm not much good in a battle."

"It will be most appreciated to have an experienced trainer aboard," said Lukas, thereby avoiding Est's self-deprecating comment on her merits in battle. "May I sit with you for lunch?"

“Sure."

"I take it then you've come on your own?” Lukas said after what he considered might be a suitable pause.

"Yeah, my sisters are keeping busy back home cleaning things up. We kind of had another war."

"Then I'm glad to hear you and your sisters came through that war."

“Yup.” She’d gone from pushing the food around her bowl to the reflexive eating of someone who wasn’t tasting her meal, then switched back to just stirring it. ”Hey, Lukas? I've seen Forsyth all over the place already today, but where's your other friend? You know. Python."

"Ah. Python is doing well also, so you needn't worry. Rather than become a knight he's gone off to help the people in an area where it's often difficult for the official rule of law to be maintained. Forsyth checks in on him every now and again.” Lukas hoped that was an adequate response. "There can be a benefit to people going their separate ways.”

“Mm,” said Est around a mouthful of stew. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Since this was failing as cordial conversation, Lukas said, "This is a fine time to be arriving at the castle, as in three days we'll have the Festival of Swallows."

“You mean those funny little birds?”

“Yes. Do you have them in Archanea?” 

“Not like yours. Ours have different colors on them. One’s kinda purple and the others are orange and brown. There were lots in Altea…”

"Every year on the same date, thousands of swallows arrive at dusk. They stay around the castle for several days, and by the third dawn they’ve always flown off. No one knows their origin and no one knows where they fly to after they leave here. Last year they returned after not appearing during the time of famine and it was a great relief to see them again.”

Lukas thought he saw a gleam of interest in her face at last.

"The festival will be joyous and then the days after that will be busy for us all. Ten thousand swallows do make quite the mess."

“I bet they do,” said Est, and Lukas noted how much more genuine the thoughtful small frown seemed compared to her smile. “Every little bit of it adds up…”

-x-

Talking to Lukas that afternoon made Est feel like things in Valentia might actually work out. Then she got back to her room in the barracks— just one room to herself, full of pretty colors but so empty, with only enough furniture for one person like she was expected to be alone and stay alone forever.

“Can’t cry myself to sleep. Got to get up early and meet my new students. That’ll be fun, right?” Est could imagine her voice was echoing in the bare room. “Can’t let the students see you cry, either. They have to think being a knight is something to look forward to.”

When she put it that way to herself, Est had to wonder why she was even there at all. She did end up crying into her pillow a little before the long, long days at her back caught up with her and she fell into a sleep so exhausted that it was almost like being dead and she couldn't even dream.

-x-

"Lukas."

“Clive."

Lukas found himself focusing on Clive's earlobe rather than his eyes as the captain reported there was a new trainer on hand to assist Lukas with the recruits.

"Est? Yes, we've caught up with one another already."

"Excellent. My hope is that her youth and charm will serve to make the Brotherhood a little more… welcoming.” Clive grinned like he was letting Lukas in on some private jest. In a sense he was… and yet wasn’t. “She has a disarming charm to her smile, doesn't she?"

Lukas would've used the term 'disconcerting.' Est's bright yet brittle smile reminded him of Faye, another young woman who hadn't come through the war in the best state of mind. Faye'd grown reckless during the closing days of the war and when she abruptly returned to Ram Village rather than remain a soldier, Lukas suspected everyone was more than a little relieved. Est, he knew, was even younger than Faye and had surely seen three times the combat in her brief life.

"Did she disclose why she's come all this way?” asked Lukas. Clive didn’t have to tell him, of course…

"Archanea's seen a time of great upheaval and she was looking for a new opportunity."

"Ah."

"Though it did occur to me...didn't she used to talk about running a shop with her sweetheart? I seem to recall her making gifts of strange trinkets and other oddities from their stock.” Of course Clive was hazy on the details of Est’s situation; this was precisely the sort of thing he depended upon Lukas to remember. "If Archanea endured a catastrophic war then perhaps her sweetheart died."

"That would be the charitable assumption," said Lukas.

“Charitable?" Amazing how a single word could so visibly knock Clive off-balance. "Well, it's true there are other possibilities."

Neither of them needed to make a list of what else might've transpired. If they had, Lukas was certain his own list would contain a few items that Clive in his righteousness would never even consider.

-x-

The first three days of Est’s new life were strangely dull. She got up at dawn, took Atropos for some exercise, had breakfast with the other knights, met her new students and tried not to remember any of her old students. She drilled them on the basics of how to use lances, spears, and javelins for a couple of hours, and then they had lunch, then she drilled them for a couple more hours, and they were done and everyone went off to have a good time. Est didn't know where to go or what to do yet to begin to have a good time and so she'd just take Atropos out again until it was time to sleep.

At the end of the third day, Lukas met Est on her way out the door. 

“The sentries have seen the advance guard of the swallows. They’ll arrive on time,” he said, and something in the way Lukas said it made a flock of birds coming in sound every bit as special as the people in Valentia thought it was. The afternoon sun lit up his red hair and for a moment Est felt like she was back in Altea, talking to Cain after a day of teaching the new squires. After that she had to focus on all the things about Lukas that weren’t like Cain at all— how calm his voice was, how quiet his laugh was, how being around him just felt different.

And that made her notice the ways in which Lukas, red hair and all, reminded her of somebody else.

"You said no one knows where they're coming from or going to?” Est asked as the river of little birds came in against the sunset like the bore tide surging up an inlet.

"If you mean the swallows, then yes... it's one of life's mysteries.” Lukas was looking up at the sky instead of at her as he talked. ”Then again, perhaps none of us truly know where we're coming from or going to."

Est felt her throat close up. She tipped her head back to watch the birds streaming in, little dark shapes against the blue and gold and pink of the sky. As the sound of the swallows twittering got louder and louder her throat opened up again enough to get the words out and Est made her confession.  
   
"I'm running away. I mean, I ran away. You know that, right? I can't go home again."

"Ah. For those of us with no home to fly back to, this is a fine place to land for a time."

Est, used as she was to Abel telling her that everything was all right or her sisters telling her that she was all wrong, didn't really know what to make of an answer that wasn't either of those things.

"Yeah. It looks like a nice place here... to stay for a while."

They watched until clouds of swallows turned the sky dark and then the real night followed them home.

-x-

The Festival of Swallows brought as much joy and as much mess to Zofia Castle as Lukas anticipated and he wasn’t entirely sorry to see the swallows take wing and the normal order of life resume. His role in teaching recruits to the Brotherhood was to present theory to the students who’d then be handed over to Est for hands-on practice, and on a particularly pleasant day he let his class out a little early and walked over to the training yard. Est kept her trainees busy well after the bells rang at four o’clock and it took Lukas coughing lightly to warn her of the hour.

"Already?"

She hadn't said outright that she was used to being worked far harder than this but it showed in everything she did. Lukas watched now as she oversaw the students in putting away their gear and every last wooden lance lay perfectly aligned in its place before she let them depart.

"I guess it was a pretty good day," Est said once the students left them.

“It’s a fine afternoon. Let’s take our supper outside the mess hall for once.”

"Sure!"

The holiday'd depleted the store of the mess hall's meat and it was back to fish stew, this time flakes of mild white fish in an herbed tomato broth, quite nice for the season. Lukas piled his plate with rolls and a leftover cheese tart.

“I know a courtyard that sees little foot traffic, though the bench there is more of an ornament than functional.”

Est was able to perch on the delicate curlicues of metal that made up the bench; Lukas for his part made a seat on the stump of a recently felled tree and managed to balance his ration of ale on his knee as they dined in the balmy evening air.

"You drink a lot," she said, in the manner of one stating a fact without judgment.

Lukas paused in the very act of draining his ale, uncertain as to whether this was something with which he ought to take offense.

"I was under the belief my consumption of ale was fairly moderate."

"No, it is. I mean, everyone here drinks a lot. Compared with back home."

"Ah." Mere cultural differences, then. "Mila wanted us to take pleasure in the world and free-flowing ale is one proof of her beneficence."

He said it with a smile; it was a dreadfully common jest among Zofians to say that of ale and wine but Est almost certainly didn't know that, and so she took in his explanation with a solemn nod.

"The gods in Archanea aren't that nice."

"Well, you did see how everything ended for Mila.”

“Yeah.”

This time she was using her fork to score a pattern into the surface of the lonely cheese tart left on her tray.

"Hey, Lukas?"

“Mm?”

"Since we're training the squires together we've gotta be able to trust one another, so I figured I'd go ahead and tell you why I ran away."

“If it pleases you.”

"I got captured again.” Spoken so gravely as though those four words might sum up her life and be her epitaph. "That's me. I get captured, and it puts the people I love in danger, and terrible things happen to everybody, and I just can't do that anymore. So here I'll just be someone who's not important enough to be captured.”

The answer given wasn’t as bad as some of the scenarios Lukas dreamt up on his own for why Est might flee her home and family, so he did feel a measure of relief in this explanation. Even so, her reasoning was riddled with logical errors, and a part of Lukas normally kept well in check longed to point them out, to break down the faulty sentences one word at a time. But that, he thought, would send the wrong message entirely— _Est, if you were not safe at home running your shop, you are not safe anywhere._

“I don’t know yet what sort of haven Valentia will prove for us, but I’m glad to have you with us as we do our best to remake the world.”

“Yup. No gods, no family, and nothing else but this.” She said it through that forced smile, but this time Lukas thought he saw a flash of defiance and not just melancholy. “Hey… I haven’t been sociable, but would you mind showing me where the others spend time after dinner? I’d like to catch up with Clair and some of the rest now that I’m feeling a little better.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Not better enough to finish that cheese tart, though, so Lukas did it for her, as it was now a transgression of high degree to waste any food.

-x-

"Sorry I kept you waiting," Est said to Atropos, because the last rays of the sun were long gone before she visited her pegasus that night. “Lukas took me out to see Clair and those guys she hangs out with. They’re pretty funny and I actually had a really good time.”

Atropos glared.

"I know you're bored, and I thought I'd be working with you more, but my squires barely know which end of the lance is the deadly one yet and they're not ready for any actual trials. We'll get there…" Est yawned. She wasn’t old enough to drink in Valentia taverns, but Clair’d insisted she share some of what everyone was having and Est was feeling it now. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. Hasn’t it?”

Est, her fancies fueled by all the ale Clair coaxed her into trying, had the strangest jumble of dreams that night but at least they were happy dreams. She woke up a little late, like everyone did in Zofia, and as she snuggled her pillow Est wondered if the Zofians weren’t onto something after all.

**To Be Continued**


	2. Ordinary People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Est is startled by a familiar face at court and Lukas fumbles towards a theory for why people do what they do at the crossroads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This gets deeper into spoilers for the whole Archanea/Valentia saga and that's a given for the rest of this story.
> 
> Also, Est's art in FE Heroes inspired a little crack idea in me involving her romantics disasters and I toyed with that for a bit, contemplating a standalone story, but in the end I've incorporated that idea into this.

“And then the swine told me that if the Rigelian puppy wanted his taxes he could damn well collect the gold in person…”

Forsyth had been away for a fortnight in attempts to deal out the king’s justice to recalcitrant nobles of Zofia, and now he recounted his misadventures to Lukas over thick breakfast ale and creamed fish on toast. Contentment washed over Lukas as he sipped the ale and listened to the familiar rhythm of his friend’s unique way of expressing himself. Lukas hardly noticed the ripple of sound through the mess hall as General Ezekiel, here on one of his rare visits to Zofia Castle, sat down at a table among knights of the Brotherhood, but upon seeing Est’s reaction to the general he cut Forsyth off.

“Forsyth, let me see what’s amiss with her.”

Est, in her familiar place at the wall, was staring at the general with the wide eyes and pallid face of someone staring down a Terror for the first time. Lukas went to her side as casually as possible; he didn’t even need to ask what the matter was because the moment he came in earshot, Est let out a little moan.

“It’s _him_.”

“General Ezekiel, yes. Though members of the Brotherhood do call him Zeke if they dare.”

"His name isn't Zeke,” she said, as though she really hadn’t heard Lukas.

"No, it isn't," Lukas agreed, and he wondered if her nerves were beginning to give way.

"He's from Archanea. We call him Camus the Sable.”

This was so perplexing a statement that Lukas simply waited for Est to explain herself.

"When we were here before my sisters and me couldn't believe our eyes but as far as we knew the Sable Knight was really, really dead and Zeke's not so it couldn't be him. But then during the last war this paladin showed up wearing a mask just like Lord Conrad's and that was obviously Camus the Sable in a mask and somebody here mentioned Zeke went overseas and came back and…"

“Ah.”

He'd no reason to disbelieve her-- not with Zeke's well-known arrival on Rigelian shores half-dead and washed up by the surf-- and the detail about the mask did seem... telling.  
    
"I stole a sword from him once," said Est. Color crept back into her face and she looked more herself again in spite of her downturned mouth. "I'm pretty sure he'll remember that much about me.”

Clearly there were dimensions to the Archanean wars that Lukas didn't fully understand.

"If Zeke has left a complicated past to make a home here in Valentia then he should have no issue with a former knight of Archanea doing the same. From your account of Camus the Sable it sounds as though there might be some people in Archanea who'd be most intrigued by his survival and therefore it's not in Zeke's own interest to bring attention to that… or to you.”

“I guess.” She sat with her hands propped under her chin, watching the general with no pretense at discretion. “You make me feel better about things, Lukas. Thanks.”

"You're welcome."

And he meant it, but at the same time Lukas had already decided he needed to find whatever he could on the situation in Archanea-- a land of many countries with a dizzying array of emperors and client-kings and rebellions-- and read up on it before they encountered any other surprises.

"Is everything all right?" asked Forsyth when Lukas returned to his original seat.

"Fine," Lukas lied. "She'd heard a rumor of Zeke's demise and was startled to see him among us yet."

Forsyth, he thought, would be an excellent resource in digging into the mysteries of Archanea. Forsyth, he knew, would do all the wrong things with the information once he had it, and so this would be for Lukas alone to puzzle out.

-x-

On her way out of the mess hall, Est steeled her nerves and made herself walk right by the general and catch his eye.

“Long time no see, General Zeke!”

The blond man that Est knew by at least three different names recognized her for sure, but the look in his dark eyes seemed hurt more than anything and he gave her a queasy sort of smile. Instead of feeling proud of herself for facing up to her fears, Est felt like she'd done Zeke a wrong.

"I guess he's been through a lot," she muttered to herself. "More than me, even, considering he had to be dead for a while."

She resolved to be kind to the general-- kind, in a way that Est of the Macedonian Whitewings would never have been able to feel toward Camus of the Sable Order of Grust, the finest warrior alive.

If the Sable Knight could find his way back into the light, maybe the girl who’d once outwitted him really could make a place for herself.

-x-

As Avistym progressed the heat became oppressive in a way it never had been when Mila ruled with a mild hand. The Valentian calendar still featured regular days of rest borrowed from Zofian practice and when Est and Lukas found themselves on a day without classes there was little either of them wished to do with the holiday. In plainclothes they traveled a short distance beyond the castle to a meadow that had been, not many years before, the orchard of a noble estate. Now the grass grew thick around the remains of dead trees, and no caretaker disturbed them as Est let her pegasus graze while Lukas sat beneath the largest of the remaining orange trees with the latest novel that he and Forsyth had picked for the reading circle they'd attempted to start among the Brotherhood. Oranges no longer ripened year-round and so there were no fruits to pose a falling hazard... or to serve as a juicy snack close at hand.

"What's that?" Est asked as she sprawled out on the grass alongside Lukas.

"It's a little confection of a book written by a Rigelian merchant who lived in Zofia's capital during the early years of Lima IV's reign. It's amusing on the surface but the humor cuts to the bone looking back on it now."

"Oh. What's it about?"

"Ordinary people," he said. "Living ordinary lives in a world where nothing quite makes sense."

Est responded by making a face that Lukas thought expressed some mixture of puzzlement and distaste.

"That's not my kind of story."

"Ah? What is your kind of story then?"

"Well, I haven't really read anything in a while," she admitted, and Lukas was not exactly surprised by it. "But when I was small Palla would read to me at bedtime and the ones I liked were all about romance and adventure. One of my very favorite stories was The Little Lion Princess. D'you know that one?"

"I can't recall it. Tales of romance and adventure were frowned upon in my household."

"That's sad," she said, the earnest and unguarded admission that his childhood hadn't been right was unexpectedly touching to Lukas. "Well, it was about a little princess who was weak and needed to be protected by everyone including her big brother, and when she realized how much protecting her actually cost other people she vowed she would get strong enough that she could defend herself and protect everyone else, too. And she did, and I said to myself that I'd be just like her and not have to depend on my sisters or anyone else to save me. And I _did_ try. I thought I made it. That time I stole the Mercurius sword from Camus the Sable I thought I really had it made."

Lukas wondered how young she must have been on stealing the sword-- thirteen? Fourteen? A genuine child.

"But anyway, the story was actually a really sad one because the stronger the Lion Princess got the worse everything around her got, like her brother died and their kingdom fell and everything was horrible. And maybe that was actually the point of the story and I never understood it until now? Huh." She broke off for a moment and seemed to gaze inward, then shook her head briskly and returned to the tale. "But at the end she fell in love with a knight from another country and they fought alongside one another for a while and she thought that maybe everything would be okay... until one day he had to choose between her and his country and he picked his country. And she rode off into great peril and was never seen again, the end."

"Ah."

"And I thought that was just the _worst_ and wondered how anyone could to that to someone they loved... but then when Archanea made Abel pick between his country and me, he chose me. And I'm pretty sure _that_ was actually worse."

"And that was the crossroads that led you to Valentia."

"Yup. Well, Abel was the one at the crossroads, really. They said 'Fight for us or we'll kill your wife' and he fought for them because he didn't know they were planning to kill me anyway. Or maybe he just didn't believe people could really be that awful, I don't know. But even though I got rescued and he got pardoned, there are some things you can't... undo?" Est rolled over onto her back and light streaming through the leaves of the orange tree made flickering patterns on her face. ”I wish our king had that wheel that makes time go backward. That would undo it."

So tangled were Archanean politics that Lukas still didn't know which of the kings, queens, and emperors Est referenced in passing might be meant in this case.

"Up to then I always thought that following your heart was the best thing to do. Like, choices were risky, sure, but they were easy. Follow my sisters into battle. Steal that sword from Camus the Sable and deliver it to the rebellion. Quit being a knight and buy that shop with Abel. I could've gotten killed a couple of times-- okay, a lot of times-- but it wasn't ever hard to make the decision. I listened to my heart and it told me the truth." She lowered her arm to the grass. "I don't think that's going to work anymore."

"And there we are. Ordinary people in a world that doesn't entirely make sense."

"Right, so what do you want to read about it for?"

Her voice was three shades brighter as Est picked herself off the grass and proceeded to climb the orange tree in search of any remaining oranges. A rain of small, hard, and very green fruit fell around Lukas as he continued to read.

-x-

Est did not make her usual appearance at breakfast on the day the actual emissary from the new ruler of Archanea was due to arrive at court.

"Lukas, see if she's well," Clive directed him on realizing her absence.

It was, Lukas thought, notable that Clive did not request that Clair invade the quarters of her sister-at-arms.

"Est? It's Lukas," he said on finding her door locked. "Is everything all right?"

After several moments of silence Lukas heard the click of the lock and the door slowly swung open... though he saw no one in the room. Then Est peeped out at him from behind the door.

"I'm hiding," she admitted, with that smile that Clive found so disarming.

Lukas by this point recognized precisely what it was meant to disarm-- it was the smile employed in the tactic of admitting one's own bad behavior as a means of lessening certain punishment.

“Very well. May I hide with you for a while?"

"Don't you have some important place to be?"

"If I'm not there to greet the ambassador I suspect Clive will indulge me just once. An instructor of squires is, after all, of no great diplomatic interest."

"Okay." She closed the door and locked it behind them. "Yeah, I guess it wasn't any fun being here alone."

The room had but a single chair, and when Est took up a place on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest, Lukas stood by feeling out of place. Eventually he sat on the edge of her bed.

"Lukas, why are you so different?"

"Ah..." This most unexpected question from Est evoked the same unpleasant feeling as the time Clive had so blithely termed him a "cold observer" and Lukas now fumbled for a reply. "I can't answer that without grasping more of your intent."

"Okay. You don't usually agree with me but you never tell me I'm wrong. You just sort of accept that I do things because I'm me, and right or wrong I'm going to do them. Why is that?"

"I see." This was not the angle he expected, at least. "Perhaps I react as I do because I've already learned some hard lessons and I've no plan to learn them a second time."

"Huh."

He could tell that didn't truly answer anything for Est.

"But as to why I'm ‘different’… I seem to be constructed along different lines than other people and I can't change that any more than you can change yourself.”

"I'm sorry,” she said at once. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“I haven’t taken offense.”

"Okay." She sounded as though she didn't believe him. "You can let me know when you're upset, you know. I'm kind of used to it."

"Est, if I may ask... was your Abel often upset with you?"

Lukas believed he had gleaned the answer already but he did wish to hear it from her own lips before proceeding down any trails paved on faulty assumptions.

"No. _Never_. Honestly, Lukas, to hear Abel talk you'd think I was somebody perfect and I'm just not perfect and after a while that was part of the problem. I couldn't be sure if he even knew me or loved me or that he was in love with... I don't even know. I guess I never will. I mean, if he didn't really love me for me, but I was still worth betraying his king for... I can't..."

"Est..."

"I thought I could be strong enough to protect other people and I'm not, and I thought I found someone who'd love me no matter what and even if he did that actually hurt more. How is anything going to ever be any good, Lukas? When love is bad, what else have we even got?”

“I can’t answer that directly, but if I may make the attempt?”

"Sure."

"Sir Clive was placed in a position similar to that of your Abel when he was leading the Deliverance. Dame Mathilda was taken hostage and Clive knew that if he advanced too boldly, she'd be killed in retaliation... yet if he surrendered, all our lives including hers were forfeit. The choice between love and country really was no choice at all, so instead Clive chose not to act. If you asked him today he would call it cowardice, and yet his inaction did buy us time. I was able to complete my mission to Ram Village and come back with a new leader for the Deliverance, and Alm was able to see a path forward where Clive could not."

Est’s mouth opened into a small circle of surprise as she listened to this account.

"I think it may go back to what I said about the way each of us is constructed. I doubt most people know what'd they'd truly do in one of these impossible situations until the moment it's forced upon them, and even then…” 

Lukas decided then he was going express to Est something he’d been struggling with and unable to voice to either Clive or Forsyth for quite some time.

"If you were to somehow employ Mila's Turnwheel to let a person make the same choice a hundred times, some might choose one way fifty times and take the opposite choice the other fifty. Some might choose the same way each of those hundred times. And someone else again might see something on the tenth or the fiftieth or the ninety-ninth time that opens up another path entirely. What we don't choose is the sort of person we are to begin with, and in that sense there may not actually be a choice of our own will-- it's been made for us before we're even placed in the impossible situation."

He’d made her physically cringe. Est stared at him over her knees with those strangely liquid eyes gone improbably wide and Lukas realized he'd been more or less spouting philosophy at someone who'd already been primed for an upsetting day.

"Forgive me. That was far too much coming from the person who should've been listening.”

“Lukas, if you had to—” It seemed to Lukas that her eyes somehow went dark; it must have been a trick of the soft light in the apartment. The question died in Est’s throat and she lowered her head back down onto her knees, exhaling a faint “Never mind.”

“There’s a certain class of question that should only be asked if one already knows the answer,” said Lukas.

“Yeah.”

“Would you like me to bring you some breakfast?” The conversation did appear to be at an end.

“Actually… I kind of wanted to cook something. D’you think you can bring me some things?” And she was back to her usual self, sounding almost chipper, her eyes alight with a rosy glow. “I just need a little bit and I can make us something real nice.”

Lukas used his status to raid the mess hall with impunity and returned with eggs, sugar, cream, and fresh berries. He returned to Est's room to find her vivid and animated, flitting about the tiny apartment. The hearth was now a makeshift cooking space and she'd spread a blanket on the floor for an indoor picnic. In short order Est transformed the pilfered ingredients into something like a sweet and feather-light omelet folded around berries and cream.

“This could be fairly called ambrosial, Est.”

“Yup! Whatever you can say about me, I can cook!”

And not another word of philosophy passed between them that day as they both played truant from the reception of the Archanean ruler’s envoy.

**To Be Continued**


	3. Wandering Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Est takes another step toward assuming a new life in Valentia but an encounter with a scurrilous old man who just might be a genuine seer injects raw fear into the relationship between Est and Lukas.

Lukas agreed to help Est in a training exercise to show their students that someone Est’s size could take down a larger opponent. They assembled both of their classes out in the practice yard for the show after regular lessons ended that day.

“So, a couple of things to remember,” said Est as she and Lukas circled around each other. “One, if you’re taking on someone taller than you and neither of you have a weapon, remember they’re going to have to aim _down_.”

Lukas obliged, shifting his stance to show an exaggerated weakness that Est could exploit. About half the class gasped as Est took him down the first time because it was pretty obviously fake. By the third time, when Lukas was putting up a real fight and Est got him in the back of the knee and sent him crashing, all the students were pie-eyed and open-mouthed. By the time they took out lances and were really in the heat of things, some of the students were crawling in so close Lukas had to stop the match and shoo them away.

Back in Altea when they were teaching the squires Est enjoyed doing practice spars like this with Cain because he’d completely get into the spirit and not go easy on her. Lukas wasn’t getting all shouty like Cain would in a sparring session but she could really tell he wasn’t going easy, either, and the squires here could see it too. The sun was blazing and they were both getting soaked and they had to stop three times for water but it was great— more fun teaching than Est’d had in ages. She was sure she’d have heat rash under her headband and for once she didn’t even care.

After class let out Est and Lukas rested under the trees. The sun wasn’t as bad now but it was still a hot day and a sticky one and Est got drowsy listening to the cicadas. Being half-asleep made memories creep into her mind, and most of the memories involved Abel. Est could almost feel his kiss on the tip of her nose or on her eyelids. She could almost feel the faintest tickle of his jawline under her fingers as she cupped her hands around his face.

It wasn’t not being kissed that hurt her the most, though— more than anything she missed being held, being clasped against his chest so her little body fit his tall one exactly, her head tucked under his chin. If she went through the rest of her life like she was with Lukas right now, a few feet away from everyone but never touched, never held…

It was going to hurt.

-x-

The live sparring session went over so well with the students that they performed it a second time for the benefit the squires, this time demonstrating how Est armed with a sword might fare against Lukas and the superior reach of his lance.

“Now, where I come from, it’s taught to students again and again that everything else being equal a sword is _never_ going to win against a lance, but here we don’t teach that and I’m going to show you why,” Est announced, and she proceeded to use every trick conceivable to get inside the range of his lance and bring him down. Nobody seeing her so, even in the relative safety of a training session, could imagine this young woman with the keen eyes and lightning reflexes was anything other than an elite soldier tempered by genuine battle, and by the time they’d finished Lukas knew he’d taken as much as his body could absorb in one day.

"I didn't rough you up too badly, did I?” she asked as they sipped their canteens of water after class.

"I'll be fine in the morning," he replied. Perhaps he’d be proven false, but even so as falsehoods went it was hardly his worst.

As long afternoon shadows melded into dusk, the breeze at last picked up and Lukas enjoyed the relief from the perspiration running down his neck. The first of that evening’s fireflies appeared above Est’s head. Lukas watched the slow blink of its cold light as it drifted upward into the trees. Within a few minutes more lights appeared in the air, lemon-yellow and new-leaf green and the ruddy color of the heart-star in the Great Scorpion that ruled the southern sky.

“Lukas? I’ve been thinking about something.”

Lukas waited for her to explain. He had intuited some time before that when Est announced she was _thinking_ of something, those around her had generally reacted with a vocal "Oh, no" and so Lukas for his part would say nothing at all.

“I need a new name,” she announced. “A new name helped Camus the Sable turn into Zeke, right?”

“If you asked Her Majesty for a new name to go with your new career I’m certain she’d bestow a fine name upon you.”

“Uh… actually, since you’re my closest friend here, I was wondering if you could give me one.”

“Well, that is an honor.” Lukas drew himself up higher against the tree trunk so he could give this request its due consideration. “Would you prefer something completely different from ‘Est’ or a name that’s similar?”

“Kinda similar? Like, I don’t want to be called… uh, a name like Cordelia wouldn’t fit me. Too fancy.”

That was indeed a name. He wondered where she’d encountered it. Lukas closed his eyes and began to mentally thumb through every book he’d ever read, sacred or profane.

_Shanna._

That sounded bright and young and yet not entirely fitting.

_Marcia._

A little more stately, a little closer to what might suit her aspirations… and again, not quite.

“ _Esther_. It’s an ancient name that means ‘star.’ Would that please you?”

“Esther.” She tipped her head back and forth in contemplation, mouthing the name silently a few more times as the fireflies blinked around her. “Sounds grand! And that way Est can be a nickname, like ‘Zeke’ for Ezekiel.”

“I am glad it pleases you,” said Lukas, but to his surprise Est was already on her feet.

“Gotta go. Gotta reintroduce myself to Atropos,” she called over her shoulder and thus was gone.

“The bond between a beast and its rider is most interesting,” he said aloud and the fireflies answered him with a code of lights beyond his comprehension.

-x-

Est— or Esther— took a night flight with Atropos as the stars came out. As the torchlights and bonfires of Zofia slid beneath them she was remembering for the thousandth time how Abel'd fallen in love with her so naturally that he hadn't even thought about it. At least that’s what he’d said, and after all this time she believed him.

"It was just like the world wanted us together right up until.. it didn’t."

Atropos snorted.

"Yeah, Atropos. I know you never liked him. I still don't get why. Abel was never anything but kind to both of us."

Gentle, and kind, and so tolerant of all of her faults... and so stuck on the idea that everything _had to_ turn out fine that he couldn't see the point on the horizon where it couldn't anymore.

"I didn't ask to get put in an impossible situation, did I? Did we? Maybe we did. I don't know. Trouble keeps finding me and I just can't believe it's not fate catching up to me. But for what?”

Atropos didn’t have anything to say to that. He was clever even as pegasi went but maybe not that clever.

“And why did everyone else have to get punished for it, too?”

The other question in her heart was something she couldn’t ask out loud, not even up here with only Atropos to hear it.

_And whatever it is chasing me… what if it followed me here?_

-x-

Avistym became Pegastym. Grain ripened in Zofian fields while the vineyards of Rigel purpled with matured fruit and all the One Kingdom shared in the hard-earned bounty. King Alm and Queen Celica proclaimed a fortnight of holidays in gratitude and Esther and Lukas, their classes out for those two weeks, went to the join in the merrymaking.

“Now the harvest festivals are deserved times of celebration,” Lukas said as they walked through stalls heaped with apples and pomegranates. Esther had told him of her childhood in famine-ravaged Macedon, of how most kingdoms of Archanea bar the tiny land of Altea had no concept of the abundance enjoyed by Zofians under Mila’s rule. Lukas had some weighty thoughts on the matter that he’d not yet found the way to express, thoughts woven around something he’d read long ago— the sentiment that one who’d truly known the deep hunger of the body and soul could never fully love one who had not— and he was mulling over how the new spirit of the harvest might affect the ability of Zofians to bond with all their fellows, Rigelians and Archaneans alike.

“Oh! That man over there’s selling Einherjar cards.”

“Einher— Esther, wait.”

She slipped through the crowd, her small form squeezing between the other fairgoers like a fish wriggling upstream. When Lukas reached her, she stood before a table spread with a curious sort of playing-card bearing bright images entirely unlike the those on the decks of cards known to Lukas.

“These are so much fun, Lukas. I used to play this game with my sisters and then I taught Abel and Cain how to when I went to Altea. You can do battles with these cards based on the kinds of heroes on them--"

"Battle? Yes, my collection of heroes can immerse you in a battle beyond the likes of any ordinary card game.” The seller, a man with a bald pate and a billy-goat's beard, spoke in a voice not unlike the bleat of an especially piteous goat. “But my heroes can do so much more.”

Lukas felt a prickle pass along the back of his neck as the card-seller’s fathomless black eyes turned on Esther.

“Pick a card, young lady.”

Something inside Lukas spoke in a voice clearer than he’d ever heard it speak: _don’t_. His lips were parted to warn Esther, but she moved too quickly and her fingers closed around one card before he could protest.

“Oh! Lukas, it’s _her_.”

"Lionhearted Princess," read the inscription of the card Esther held up to him. The girl on the card had long yellow hair and syrupy dark eyes but her face bore a striking, even disturbing, resemblance to Esther's.

"Ah, yes, that's a favorite of mine. Such a delectable little thing she was…” The ancient man coughed, and then said in a slightly less leering tone, “A little maiden of destiny, that one is. Why, young lady, your fate is surely bound up in this card.”

Lukas, his own eyes still fixed upon the card vendor, heard Esther’s gasp of dismay.

“And what of you, young sir? Pick a card and know your fortune.” Sunlight glinted off the gilded patterns etched into the back of the fanned cards held up to Lukas. "The past, the future, the paths to other worlds that exist unseen alongside our own-- all can be revealed."

Lukas felt something so unaccustomed, so alien, he didn't even place the sensation at first, but that voice inside him was speaking again: _don’t don’t don’t you do_ not _want to know_.

“I’ll have none of your games,” he replied in his actual voice, the one that sounded as it always did. “And I’m quite sure the fortunes one tells by plucking petals on a daisy carry more weight than those seen in your cards.”

As Lukas turned on his heel a metallic taste rose in the back of his throat. That taste allowed Lukas to at least give a name to what he was experiencing.

"I'm more afraid of that repellent old man than I was of facing a mad god in his death throes.” He did not have time to puzzle out why before he heard Esther’s feet coming up behind him.

“Lukas, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize that man would be so creepy.”

“Did you give him back his card?”

“N-no.” Indeed, it was plain in her hand.

"Fortunes are a silly business, Esther. I've long believed that the gods arranging our destiny have a curdled sense of humor. We've put them to rest, so let's not resurrect old fears for a sake of a game."

She stood there, rigid as a statue, hand over her heart and the card yet in her hand.

"You only buried two of the gods, Lukas. There's more. Lots more.” The setting sun over his shoulder cast an amber beam across her face and sent the strangest light into her eyes. "And they don't die easy. I've seen them come back."

"All the more reason not to dabble in fortune-telling. To witness one prophecy fulfilled is enough for my lifetime. Come along, there’s plenty to see here that isn’t the handiwork of false prophets.”

-x-

Est wanted to come along, to forget what she’d just seen and heard, but the card was there solid between her fingers. She glanced down at the girl on the card again and then looked up at Lukas, who was beckoning her on like everything was as normal as it got around here.

“Easy for you to say. You’re not in my boots,” Est ventured, and Lukas gave her a sharp look.

"What did we say there at Rigel during the final battle? Our destiny is ours to control. Cut the strings and allow humanity to reach its full potential away from the gods and their constraints.”

He was giving a speech. He wasn’t looking her in the eyes— or looking anywhere, really. He looked beautiful, with the sunset turning his hair to fire, but she didn’t really know what some of the things he was saying even meant and she sure knew she didn’t believe him right now.

"You don't make any sense, Lukas. You tell me that we don't have choices because of who we are as people, then you tell me you've got the reins of your own destiny? Which part am I supposed to go with?” He couldn’t answer, just stood there frowning at her like she was the one not making sense. “And if you really don’t believe it means anything, why didn’t you look?”

And Lukas made a sound like “ngh,” kind of like a cat being stepped on.

"Maybe what you're afraid of is that there's something bigger than dead rotting dragons out there and we really don't have control of anything. We're just dolls. Or cards in somebody's game and we get played when the moment is right."

Est ran out of words then, so she looked down at the card, and the gold on its back glowed like fire in between her fingers.

"Esther, when you speak of the voice of your heart that is something I never have known.” Est knew she’d upset him— it was plain in his face— and yet he sounded so calm, and that in its own way was a little scary. “If I believe that I have been loosened from these bonds of fate placed upon us by the gods, I can cherish some hope that one day I may hear that voice and be able to act upon it. That hope may be vain but it is the only one that I carry.”

“Oh,” she said, because now she didn’t know what else she could possibly say.

“And I will not entertain the idea that my destiny is bound up in a playing card.”

“Lukas! Wait. _Wait_!”

Est knew she was quick, but his stride was so much longer that it carried Lukas away faster than she could keep up, and she lost him in the crowd as the last red light of the sun disappeared into the clouds along the horizon.

-x-

Alone in his quarters at an hour when everyone else was still enjoying the festival, Lukas busied himself with the most dull of tasks— checking inventory lists for his class supplies, setting aside an old pair of boots and a worn belt to send in for repairs, inspecting his less-favored weapons. The book he and Forsyth were supposed to be reading this month did not appeal to him at present, and none of what he was doing took his thoughts away from the sour end to their afternoon at the festival.

"The so-called gods," Forsyth said of them always, denying their very supremacy over humans. Lukas didn’t go as far that, but he held neither awe nor fear for these beings, regardless of what the high priest of the new faith had to say of them now.

“None of which explains why you reacted in fear,” he said aloud, engaging himself in dialogue since no one else was there to talk him through it. “If you thought that old man was trouble, you should have apprehended him. If nothing else, he sounded a madman.”

He could see a fragment of his own face reflected in the blue steel of his spare lance.

“You failed to act because you let fear guide you.”

The single eye staring back at him from the polished blade gave him quite the cold look.

“Is fear the true voice of the heart? Maybe then you should silence it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote about those who've known hunger is adapted from a line in The Poisonwood Bible. I think about it a lot whenever Fire Emblem starts trading in famines, embargoes, and starvation.
> 
> Note that Est for all that she wants a new identity hasn't quite internalized it yet.
> 
> Anyone who's played FE13's DLC ought to know who the "false prophet" is, but his real identity is even more alarming than his Old Hubba persona. Elements of the DLC and FE Heroes are bleeding into the Valentian reality here... hey, it's all canon, right? Right?


	4. Wedding Bells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clair's upcoming wedding to Gray dredges up ways of making everyone uncomfortable, as weddings are wont to do.

Back in her sad little room that night Esther vowed she’d spend the rest of the harvest festival trying to avoid Lukas at all costs. To her surprise, a knock on the door early the next morning turned out to be Lukas, who up and apologized for his words and behavior the night before. No strings attached and nothing that struck Esther as a guilt trip of the sort she was used to, the “I did this for your own good” sort of guilt.

She still went out and spent time with the others during the holiday, because Clair kept inviting her places and Tobin and Gray both knew how to have fun, but at least the argument with Lukas didn’t spoil everything and by the time their classes started up again it was like whole thing didn’t happen… except for the card that Esther kept in her pocket to remind her that as sensible as Lukas usually sounded, maybe he wasn’t right about everything.

-x-

Clair wanted her wedding held when the orange and lemon blossoms filled the air with their scent, and now that the blossoms only unfurled twice a year that meant for a Pegastym wedding. 

“Just an intimate affair among friends,” said the bride as invitations went out, and Lukas supposed that was a cover of sorts, a means of letting the members of the Brotherhood know that they weren’t all entitled to be in the wedding party. Lukas never expected to have any formal place among Gray’s groomsmen and wasn’t offended the offer never came.

What Clair did with her bridal party, though…

“Lukas, what am I supposed to do with this?”

So said Esther of the handwritten note from Clair that provided instruction as to how a bridesmaid was to comport herself and the activities that Esther was obliged to partake in as a member of that number.

“You do have every right to decline,” Lukas replied.

Esther, after all, was neither maiden nor matron nor widow and thus had no clear place among a wedding party as Lukas saw it.

“Yeah, but that’s not how it works,” said Esther. "It's part of the new me, right? I'm Esther, Knight of the One Kingdom.”

“It’s your decision,” Lukas said again. If Clair by some imaginative will had decided to simply erase the existence of Esther’s prior life from the record, and Esther was content to take her up on it, then it was none of his concern.

“I think I’ll do it,” said Esther. “Could be fun, right? Nothing’s ever dull around Clair.”

“Nothing,” Lukas agreed.

-x-

Being in Clair’s wedding was a lot more fuss than Esther’d gone through on her own account. All the ladies in the wedding party were getting silk dresses in Clair’s favorite shade of light blue and it took three visits to three different merchants before Clair even settled on the right kind of fabric. Then came all the big decisions over shoes and over flowers and then days spent dealing with Clair’s own dress and train and veil. And gloves. And the food. And the music…

Esther almost cried in relief when her bridesmaid dress got delivered to her room, just because that part of it was over.

“Do I look okay in this?” She did a little spin on her toes so Lukas could see the whole dress, then added, “I don’t ever wear blue. It was Catria’s color.”

“I think the softness of the blue suits you well,” said Lukas. “Do you mean the color was off-limits to you before?”

“Well, pink was kind of picked out for me. When I came along Palla already had everything green and Catria knew she wanted blue, so everything of mine had to be pink.”

“Such is the lot of the younger child,” said Lukas, and because Esther didn’t quite get the way he said it, she decided to just ask something that’d been on her mind thanks to some offhand comment of Clair’s a while back.

“Yeah, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you? Clair mentioned you joined the army because of your brother. Did he… um… die? Because you never talk about him.”

“My brother and I never enjoyed the closeness you knew with your sisters, so I’m afraid there’s little of any value to reminisce about.”

It bothered her just a little that Lukas said that with a smile on his face. Maybe more than a little.

“So you don’t miss him.”

“It would not pain me if I never did see him again,” he said, and he sounded almost happy about it.

“I wish I could learn not to miss mine.” She looked down at the flounces of her skirt and wondered how silly she actually looked.

“The blue really does suit you,” Lukas said then, like that somehow made everything better.

-x-

The nuptials of Sir Gray and Dame Clair were, of course, the grandest spectacle since the royal wedding itself. Everyone of any standing from the old courts of both Zofia and Rigel made an appearance at this “intimate” ceremony, from remnants of high Zofian nobility to General Ezekiel and his lady. Mathilda made one of her infrequent appearances at court as Clair’s matron of honor. It was quite the scene to behold and Lukas enjoyed the spectacle right until the moment that the newly-wedded Clair hurled her bridal bouquet to Esther with the precision of a javelin strike.

"A fair omen, is it not?” Clive said of the caught bouquet when he and Lukas bumped into one another at the reception. 

Lukas focused his eyes on the half-drunk glass of sparkling wine in Clive’s hand. Clive had on his dress uniform complete with sash and presentation saber, and as he’d escorted Clair down the aisle to her betrothed Lukas experienced that queasy fluttery feeling he’d never precisely put a name to, that sudden sense of wanting something indefinable and therefore out of reach. 

Lukas took a long sip of his own glass of wine before he replied.

"It's past the time to believe in omens. Are we not free?"

Clive laughed at this, and it was the slightly sheepish laugh that Lukas often got out of him, the one that indicated Clive knew he’d committed some mis-step he couldn’t place or identify… and therefore could not address. They were so very good at placing one another in positions of discomfort.

But of course Clive meant well. He always meant well.

Today, to get past the discomfort Clive put on a smile and said,“Let us take a walk. It’s been a while since we talked at length.”

Lukas followed Clive out of the bustling reception hall into the courtyard, where the breeze dispersed the perfume of all Clair’s citrus blossoms.

“Forsyth is making quite the name for himself,” Clive began. 

Lukas felt an immediate lessening of his discomfort. Far better to discuss Forsyth’s exploits beyond the castle walls than to discuss his own business. The queasy feeling didn’t go entirely away, though— it wouldn’t in Clive’s presence, not as they walked shoulder to shoulder like this, not as the sunlight made an aureole of Clive’s golden hair. As he made his response Lukas focused on Clive’s chin, the base of his ear, the knot of his cravat— anything but his eyes.

“I do believe that Forsyth, in the particulars of his motivation and background, has blinded us toward one of the great difficulties in recruiting squires from all corners.”

“Oh?”

Clive didn’t stumble— he wouldn’t— but there was the slightest lag in his step that let Lukas know this was not the answer Clive expected.

“Forsyth may have resisted his father’s teachings but he still absorbed an education far better than that of most in his position— and of more than a few nobles, I must say. He is not an average representative of his class. Forsyth struck you as _exceptional_ because he is, in fact, exceptional.” 

Clive tilted his head, indicating that Lukas ought to keep going, and so Lukas continued.

“Likewise, in the case of Grey, Tobin, and our king, the tutelage they received from Mycen was again _exceptional_ and went far beyond handling swords in the fields.” He could still hear Alm’s young voice rattling off all that he’d learned— _military tactics, medicine, weather, terrain_ — to set him on a warrior’s path. “Outside of Ram Village and the presence of a veteran knight like Sir Mycen, farm children receive none of this, and yet we assume they must surely know, because some other children did.”

“Are you saying there ought to be some manner of test upon acceptance as a squire?” Clive sounded rattled, and Lukas had to resist the urge to sigh.

“Not in the least. I am saying that if Valentia is to be served by _knights_ and not merely soldiers than she needs to do more in serving new squires. I do not have any sort of map or plan to achieve this as yet, but if our wish is for knights to have some especial value to society, we will not reach it this way.”

They had reached the end of the path and the end of the day; a pale sun sank into a curtain of fog at the horizon and turned the deep red-orange of an ember.

“I will take what you say into consideration, said Clive, and still he sounded rattled.

Lukas had to rely on the sound because he could not let himself look at Clive, not right now in the oncoming twilight as the evening star emerged in the west above the band of fog that sealed off the sun.

He noticed twilight so often, Lukas thought then. That hour balanced between day and darkness, when the air was so luminous that the sky itself seemed translucent as though something might be glimpsed behind it. Right now, with the substance and spirit of his being sent into eddies of some happy distress at Clive’s presence, Lukas imagined he could somehow coast along the onrushing band of night’s shadow, ride that darkness over the arc of the horizon itself and touch whatever it was beyond the blue glow of twilight and thereby find _something._

And of course, he couldn’t. And he should really force himself to stop imagining… and yet he couldn’t do that, either.

-x-

Clair didn’t let her keep the bouquet. Esther didn’t want it; it made her think of her own bouquet, which she’d thrown between her sisters. Both Palla and Catria touched it at the same time and then Palla let Catria keep it because that’s what Palla always did, and Esther never saw it again.

That silly bunch of flowers hadn’t helped Catria land her prince, had it? Clair could definitely have the bouquet back.

Esther somehow missed Lukas at the reception. Attending to the bride kept her pretty busy but she kept looking around, hoping to catch sight of his red hair, and when she couldn’t find him anywhere— not by the cake, not with Forsyth or their other friends, not anywhere— she felt sad and sorry in a way she couldn’t really explain.

Then the dancing started, and as Sir Clive led his sister through a dance before handing her off to Gray forever, Esther figured out a part of why she felt sorry and left out. She hitched up the skirts of that blue grown and marched over to Tobin.

“Come dancing, Tobin!” 

She had a dance with Tobin, one with Forsyth, then one with Sir Valbar, who was a real sweetie to her even though she’d been hiding from him because he knew too much of her from the bad days, when she was Est of the Whitewings who got captured by pirates. Valbar seemed awfully touched that she was speaking to him again and he looked out for her the rest of the night.

When it was all over Esther was so tired that she had to force herself to hang the blue gown up properly instead of leaving it in a crumple on the floor.

“I thought you liked me in it,” she said to a very not-there Lukas as she put the dress away. “Thought you wouldn’t mind a dance. Maybe next time.”

As Esther shook out the skirt of the gown a little white rosebud sprung out of one of its flounces. Maybe it had fallen out of Clair’s bouquet or maybe it had just gotten lodged in her skirt during all the running around. She tucked it away in the hiding place where she kept the _Einherjar_ card.

_Next time._

**To Be Continued**


	5. Crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lukas finds something new to fuel his work while Esther comes up with an idea that might be brilliant or terrible.

“I would like to, as they say, pick your brain,” Lukas said one chilly afternoon as they sipped hot tea in Esther’s classroom after the squires had been let out.

“Sure! Go ahead.” It was nice to have someone ask her about her brains and know they weren’t setting her up for a joke.

“I’m somewhat ashamed to say I know so very little about the schooling Altean knights received even after working alongside you for this long. What was the full experience outside the training yard like?”

“Well… you’ve gotta understand the knights of Altea went through a lot,” Esther began, in part because she didn’t want to admit she’d never gone through the actual schooling herself and really didn’t know. “I mean, most of ‘em were dead from the last war, and we were just trying to build things up by training as many kids as possible. Someone like me was a seasoned veteran in that army.”

“Ah.”  


“But in the old days it was different,” Esther continued, and she had the weird sense that Lukas was hanging onto every word in a way that went beyond just listening politely. There was something in his eyes that looked, well, hungry. Usually the only thing that made him stare that way was actual food. “Sir Jagen told us sometimes about how when he was a squire, everyone was expected to know the Raman Bible and the great epics of Anri.”

“I’m not familiar with these names,” said Lukas. “Tell me of Sir Jagen and of this… Bible.”

“Sure!” Even after leaving Altea behind forever, the thought that somebody wouldn’t have heard of Jagen ever was weird to Esther. “So, picture Sir Mycen without the mustache…”

-x-

“Special delivery.”

The package that Forsyth set on his desk was wrapped in plain brown paper and exuded a scent of leather and must.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t ask where you managed to find this, but I appreciate the effort, Forsyth.”

“It wasn’t as hard as I expected.” Forsyth settled his long frame into one of the small wooden chairs that scarcely held a first-year recruit with any level of comfort. “It seems that some of our countrymen are turning to foreign cults rather than embrace the new faith of both Mila and Duma.”

“Did you pose as one of those seeking solace in a new philosophy?” asked Lukas, and Forsyth squirmed in just the way Lukas expected him to.

“I might’ve… feigned something more than mere intellectual interest to facilitate the sale.” Forsyth did enjoy a bit of play-acting now and again. “It’s not something that would send me to the gallows, after all.”

“After your denunciation of Duma at the Altar I can’t imagine anyone would take you as an easy mark for cults. Besides, as a knight you’d now be eligible for the headsman’s block and need not fear the gallows.” 

Lukas felt himself smiling as he undid the cord around the package and peeled away the paper that tried to make something innocuous of the book of occult lore that Forsyth had procured for him. Forsyth did make the most delightful expressions when provoked.

-x-

“You get on me for putting in too many hours with the squires, but it seems to me like you’re pulling a lot of double shifts yourself, Lukas.” It was two hours past sunset and Esther had to track Lukas down at his office and try and yank him out. “Come over to my place and I’ll make gingerbread and we can just relax.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Lukas said as he closed the notebook he’d been scribbling in. “I’ve been trying to piece together a supplementary lesson plan for some of our more inquisitive students.”

“So, that’s… extra classes for people who want them?”

“Yes, precisely.”

Something balanced on the tip of Esther’s tongue— a joke that wasn’t really a joke about how the work habits of Zofians were already changing— but it didn’t feel right to say and so she swallowed it.

“Come on, _gingerbread_. It’ll be fun.”

It turned out Esther’s idea of gingerbread wasn’t much like what Zofians called gingerbread. Zofians liked a big gooey cake, dark with molasses. The Altean recipe that Esther tried to make was golden-brown and dry enough to cut into neat squares and put in a lunchbox, but after Lukas tried to help her tweak the recipe the batter was almost black and so thick it was a pain to stir. As she tried to tame the batter Esther sang a bit of a folk song Palla taught her, one Palla learned from their mother, and their mother learned from their grandmama, going back to the days when Macedonians labored as slaves for the dragonkin and the songs they whispered to everything they made with their hands was supposed to be magic.

“I caught you. You were humming along,” she said to Lukas.

“I’m afraid I don’t sing.” He had a dusting of flour on the tip of his nose. 

“Can’t sing or won’t sing?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been moved to sing. You may’ve heard the expression about feeling a song in one’s heart?”

“Yeah… I used to sing with my sisters. The three of us…” Esther wanted to tell him about the real meaning of her baking song then, tell her of Palla and their mother and grandmama and the Macedonians keeping secrets from their captors, but instead what came out wasn’t that at all. “Abel had a really nice voice, too… but Catria always said his voice went better with Palla’s.”

“Is there some greater meaning to that?”

“Yup.” If she focused on the silly smudge of flour on his nose, Esther could keep smiling. “When we were all here, I tried to… uh… well, I thought she might be a good fit for your friend Forsyth, so…”

“That would not have worked,” said Lukas without even thinking it over.

“Yeah, Palla wasn’t having any of it. But I realized later… lots later… that she was kind of in love with Abel. And she just didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to hurt me. But hey, fortune took care of that all on its own, so…” Esther had to look down at the bowl of gingerbread dough, because even the mess on Lukas’s face wasn’t enough of a distraction. “Maybe they’re happy together. I hope they’re happy. Anyway, let’s get this on the fire, because it’s as ready as it’s going to be.”

-x-

The days got shorter and the wind got colder. Esther baked as many treats as she could think of, enough for the whole mess hall when she counted them all, because it gave her an excuse to stay by the hearth during the dark evenings. Lukas joined her at first, but once he started teaching his extra class he was busy for two nights a week, and so Esther was on her own. One night she decided to drop in on Lukas and his class. Esther brought along a basket of honey cakes that were just about as good as the ones she remembered from Macedon. She packed a basket with six cakes for the students, one for herself, and two for Lukas since he always wanted seconds. Esther crept toward the classroom door as quiet as she could and stood there watching for a few minutes.  


“This text from the Raman Bible used in Archanea celebrates Naga, the Guardian God of Archanea, as a mighty warrior with a jeweled sword,” Lukas was saying as he wrote a sentence out on the slate board. 

Esther nodded to herself, because that was exactly the way she’d always heard it.

“Whereas this fragment belonging to a much older poetic tradition depicts Naga as a young maiden, little more than a child…" Lukas added some more to the slate board, then turned to face his class. “Does anyone have any idea as to why these two very different ideas of the god Naga have been handed down to us?"

The first hand to go up belonged to a squire with curly dark hair-- one of Sir Gray's cousins, Esther thought. Was her name Rosa?

“Isn't the first version the one that'll be more true?” Rosa asked.

“That’s one possibility. Could there be another explanation?” Lukas pointed to the boy sitting in the back row. “Sam, what do you think?”

Esther forgot about her plan to bring in the honey cakes as she watched Lukas from the doorway. He was beautiful, but not in the same way he looked when making some speech that didn't really come from his heart. Something in his face was different now in a way Esther couldn't place. He was jingling the chalk around his in hand like he was having fun without thinking about it. 

The honey cakes got cold long before anyone noticed her and Esther didn’t really care because she could’ve listened to him all night long.

-x-

“How is Atropos taking the winter?” asked Lukas, as he hadn’t accompanied Esther on a visit to her winged companion since he’d started his history seminar.

“He’s grouchy, but it won’t kill him. It’s cold on top of the mountains in Macedon, too.” 

It seemed to Lukas that Atropos did have quite a glare in his eyes, one that softened when Lukas held out an open palm with a treat to placate him.

“He likes you,” Esther said with a genuine giggle.

“Or he likes sugar,” said Lukas. “I can't fault him for that.”

“No, Atropos definitely likes you.”

“Then he has curious taste in human companions. I’ve never had any great gift with animals. I knew early on in my training they could never make a cavalier out of me.”

“Did you want to be?” There seemed something more than idle curiosity in the question.

“Not in the least. I had no ambitions as a soldier until I found myself one.” He looked up from the busy teeth of Atropos then and noticed that strange look to Esther that he'd seen at the harvest festival— those liquid eyes of her rosy no longer, but oddly dark, like an aged sweet wine. “Esther, is something…?”

He could not finish the sentence. He felt cold then, or beyond merely cold, as though the full volume of Rigel Falls pressed down upon him while that odd voice in his mind was shouting _no, no, NO_.

“Lukas... Do you—”

“I believe I’ve said there are some questions that should only be asked if one knows the answer.” He could hear just how harsh those words sounded but the words were already spoken and no regret could call them back.

“Do you want to move in together? Just as friends I mean like Tobin and Gray were staying together before Gray got married? We’d have more space and I could have hot meals waiting for you when you get back from your extra classes and then I could bake even more and that’d keep the place warm during the winter and we wouldn’t be coming home to those lonely little boxes.”

It all came out in a rush, each sentence tumbling into the next without the space for a breath.

“This is not some roundabout way of making an different sort of proposal?” Lukas still felt chilly and jaded and didn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed for the assumption he’d made about the question Esther was going to ask. He was, in truth, quite certain she was planning to ask something else entirely, something that would’ve put them both at a crossroads from which there was no easy path.

“Nope! We’re friends, Tobin and Gray were friends… it’ll work, won’t it?”

At least she hadn’t used Python and Forsyth as an example of… friends. For a woman once married, Esther proved herself again and again to possess the most curious points of innocence.

“You’ve laid out a sensible argument, Esther. Let’s meet with Clive tomorrow and see if he can reallocate the rooms.”

The embrace she gave him after that seemed more a confirmation of his suspicions than it did evidence to the contrary. Lukas looked over Est’s head to Atropos, who stared back with a calm eye, as though he couldn’t be more content with what just transpired.  


-x-

Lukas did not often suffer sleepless nights. He generally reached his quarters after so long a day that he tumbled into sleep not long after his head settled into the pillow. That particular night, placed between the agreement with Esther and the conversation with Clive, he lay awake and troubled in the unwelcoming dark. Of late he’d been slipping back into the conviction that he'd not come into the world whole, but rather as a collection of pieces, like fragments of a once-perfect vase rattling around in a box.

Gods, he missed Python. Python would’ve talked him through this, just the way he had during the war, assuring Lukas of his fitting place amid the wide-ranging spectrum of humanity. Lukas could’ve used that dialogue now, for he was certain— quite certain— that the question lodged forever in Esther’s throat was “Do you love me?” or even “Could you love me?” and the answer there was something even one as coldblooded as he wasn’t willing to voice.


	6. Blessed Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as Esther and Lukas think they've settled into their new roles in the One Kingdom, life makes other plans for Esther.

On the first morning Esther woke in her bunk and heard Lukas breathing softly below her, she knew for sure it'd been a great idea to move in together. She crept down the ladder past his bunk just the way she used to back in the barracks at Macedon, where she learned early on to avoid waking Catria, and began to pad around the room, boiling water to make tea and poaching the eggs from her little stockpile of kitchen things. When Lukas woke up there was breakfast ready on the table and the smile she got out of him wasn't the usual one he put on for people to see. She'd surprised him, but in a good way, and it made her feel fluttery inside.

Wyrmstym's class term turned out to be a lot of hard work broken up by enough good times and holidays that it was bearable. Coming home to am apartment with someone else's things scattered around was so much nicer than her old quarters that this all by itself raised Esther's spirits. The sense of someone else's life in the room just made everything so much less lonely. Some days they got up early and cooked breakfast over the hearth instead of going to the mess hall. When Lukas had one of his special classes going late into the evening, Esther made sure to have a hot meal waiting for him when he got in, or she met him at the end of class with a care package for everyone.

One of these evenings she arrived with slices of dark raisin bread that she'd baked in an old can. She'd brought extra, which turned out to be a good thing because she counted nine students in the class now and Esther was pretty sure there'd only been eight last time. Lukas was up at the slate board, writing under two columns headed "Rigel" and "Zofia," and as Esther listened she realized he was having the students compare folktales shared by the two old kingdoms, going over all the little differences between each set of tales and finding just how much the two really had in common. Esther remembered doing just that with Cain and Abel and her sisters in that other lifetime as they traded Altean stories for Macedonian ones, the songs of Anri for the legends of Iote. She felt she knew now exactly what Lukas was trying to do with his extra classes and it awed her a little, actually, because in the Archanean army that'd all happened naturally and here in Valentia someone saw it could be done and was making it happen.

When class ended, Esther stood at the door and passed a round of raisin bread to each student. Beyond the line of heads she could see Lukas, who was leaning over his table full of notes. The glow she saw in him when he was teaching wasn't there now; he looked blank and almost sad, pulled into himself like she and the students and the whole classroom weren't there anymore.

“I wonder what you're seeing right now," she said to herself when the last student thanked her and ran down the hall. But then she called out his name and thrust the raisin bread at him and Lukas snapped out of it and everything was normal again.

-x-

For two people who'd cut themselves off from their pasts, Lukas and Esther already had managed to accumulate rather a lot of things. Lukas had long been aware of the chasm between his reputation as an orderly soldier and the general disorder of his desk, a clutter of keepsakes and scribbled notes and too many books. As for Esther, though she'd arrived in Valentia with almost nothing, he'd heard of her wartime reputation as someone with a seemingly endless supply of novelties in her saddle bag-- so-called mystical charms and miraculous tisanes.

Thankfully she'd moved past plying her companions with strange herbs. As for her own hoard of small treasures, Esther kept them affixed to a board on the wall covered in a criss-cross of ribbons and pins. Lukas noted a white rosebud, a pegasus feather, several strings of beads, a child's bracelet... and tucked into the lower right-hand corner of the board was the _Einherjar_ card of the golden-haired princess. Lukas felt the faintest prick of irritation whenever it fell into focus. It was of a piece with the fraudulent charms and tisanes, all sign of an easy mark for a peddler's fanciful story. Still, it was but one trivial irritant in a life that Lukas found more actively pleasant than his existence before she’d arrived. He’d become accustomed to a certain level of camaraderie during the war, and with Python on his own and Forsyth favoring duties outside the castle walls, finding himself free of them both might’ve unmoored him just a little.

Then again, there’d been the activity he’d been pursuing before the war, the relationship that never did have its proper resolution. That left an unexamined void in his life, and it was only now that he found himself at close quarters with Esther that Lukas forced himself to reflect on his failed courtship without the balm of self-pity.

Even now Lukas couldn’t say for certain that he’d never loved her at all. Perhaps he’d loved inadequately.

As for Esther, whose bitter thoughts on the inadequacies of love often echoed in his head, Lukas found himself analyzing the length of every stare and sigh for import, wondering over the romance novels she'd borrowed from Clair, forever dreading "Could you love me?” As winter ebbed, and her peaks of restless energy and troughs of melancholy wove around the strand of his own existence, Lukas stopped anticipating the moment that might break open their friendship and began to float through the rhythm of their days. There was, after all, so very little beyond himself that he might ever control.

One week into Flostym, as Lukas read through a dozen papers on the core differences between the rule of the dragonkin in Archanea and the era of Mila and Duma in Valentia, the sound of the door being wrenched open announced Esther’s return. The violence against the door and the clatter of her boot-heels upon the floor said to Lukas that Esther was highly agitated, but she covered this by singing to herself.

“How was the meeting with Clive and Clair?”

“Lukas, I don't know how to say this…”

“Ill news is best issued quickly," he replied, and now he set aside the papers.

“I don't think I'll be teaching with you next term.”

Instead of expressing surprise or dismay he simply waited for the rest of the story.

“Clair's going to have a baby,” she continued, which confirmed something Lukas and others already had surmised in recent weeks. “That means she can't fly for a while. That means I'll be the senior Pegasus knight in the army.”

“And so duties normally performed by Clair would fall to you,” said Lukas. Aerial reconnaissance, certain courier missions requiring as-the-crow-flies travel, support for the ground forces. Clair's utility lay not in teaching nor in active combat, but she filled her role uniquely and well.

“Yeah. I'm going to look at this as an opportunity. I don't want to be the top pegasus knight just because the person better than me isn't available. I'm going to earn it this time.”

If she’d said this while fidgeting or fussing or doing something else that betrayed her nerves, Lukas might have launched an argument regarding the essential pointlessness of being the foremost pegasus knight in Valentia when she was so suited for her present role, but Esther was still and somber as she announced her goal and he realized she actually meant it.

“Your determination is admirable. Please let me know what I can do to assist you.”

These words came out regrettably stilted, yet she responded with an embrace that was pure Esther in its spontaneity. It left Lukas with a strange ache, another one of those indefinable sensations— the loss, perhaps, something so new that Lukas hadn’t the time to process how much he even liked it.

-x-

She’d gotten so little sleep it was a wonder she didn’t tumble right off Atropos. Esther knew she’d been working double what anyone expected her to, trying to do right by all of her students while taking her own lessons on how to be a better pegasus knight. The whole week she’d been out shadowing Clair, learning exactly what Clair did when Esther was holed up with the squires. Her face felt wind-blasted and her lips were burning and and she was so tired and hungry she felt giddy, just like when Clair plied her with ale or wine.

“Hey, Lukas!”

She stepped into a warm place that smelled like sugar and vanilla. The cookies that Lukas'd made behind her back were perfect-- brown at the edges and soft in the middle.

“You've gotten pretty good at this!”

"It required understanding that baking is its own science quite apart from cooking," he said. “I've discarded more than a few failed experiments on the nights you've been away."

“Mm, experiments.” As long as experiments didn’t explode, it as all good to Esther. “Yeah, there’s definitely a trick to being good at it. One of the squires in Altea knew how to bake cookies about as good as I can. He gave me a plate of them after I helped his platoon with an exam.”

She remembered his face but couldn't come up with his name. It'd been the brown-haired one who wore green armor. She'd thought that was cute because it looked like he was imitating Abel and that made her proud at the time. The memory didn't hurt like it once would've but it drove Esther a little batty that she just couldn't remember that squire's name anymore.

"Was it Frederick? No, it started with an R. Not Roger, that was somebody else. Ralph?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing important, really. I guess forgetting is how we get through everything."

"Ah."

Esther was watching Lukas across the table as she reached for another cookie, and he was watching her back, but then for a moment his eyes went distant again, not seeing her or anyone else in the room. Esther missed the cookie entirely and bit down on air. Lukas never even noticed.

-x-

One positive by-product of Esther throwing herself headlong into the goal of being the finest knight in the skies was that Lukas ceased to worry over the nature of her feelings. All her passions were sublimated now into an abstraction, with nothing left over for romance novels and lingering sighs. Now when she arrived home in a state of agitation Lukas felt secure that it was nothing to do with him.

"I kinda got into an argument with Clive,” she began on an evening when she came home so late that it was almost a midnight supper. “See, he wants to start using our squires out on missions and I told him none of them were anywhere close to ready and that was a great way to get half of them to desert and I think maybe he took it personally about desertion but it wasn't meant to be personal because I've seen that happen again and again when you try to rebuild an army from nothing…" 

The words blurred together and she had to stop for a breath.

"Maybe you could help me smooth that over?"

"I will endeavor to do so,” he said. "It is a challenge, at times, for someone in Clive's position to remember how much of the world you've seen transformed."

"Yeah. Well, I have to put all that bad luck to use sometime, don't I?"

"Bad luck?" He'd not heard this strain of self-deprecation from Esther in some time and truly had not missed it.

"Sure. Who's had worse luck than me? I got mixed up in three different wars."

"One might say your ability to survive across three continental wars is proof of truly blessed luck,” he replied.

"That's a funny way of looking at it, Lukas. Especially since I only meant to fight in one war and the other two found me."

"War does have its own way of finding its victims.” As there was nothing more useful to say on that count, Lukas added, "We may yet have to send the squires into battle before they're ready.”

He was certain of it. The map of the One Kingdom in Clive’s office, with platoons and battalions marked by pins, had never once been free of conflict. Bandits here, rebels there, pockets of Zofian zealots south of the Sluice Gate and and remnants of Duma Faithful to the north.

"It's a bad idea, Lukas,” said Esther, speaking now as a knowledgable veteran and not a self-deprecating girl in search of pity. “Aw, I’d better get up super early tomorrow to train. The more I can carry, the more time I'll buy the squires."

"Esther... you might become the greatest flier this continent has ever known and it won't save all of our squires from their reckoning.” He knew he had to get this message through to her before she suffered a grave disappointment on this count. "There's a phrase in one of the books Forsyth's found for me. It seems to be a fragment of lyric poetry from a people that pre-dated Rigel and Zofia. It reads, 'The most worthy men and the fiercest architects of the age couldn't fight the current or save...' There it ends, but I believe the larger point does come across from what's been passed down."

"I once followed a commander who believed he could save everybody.”

"And could he?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'save,'" she said. "He killed Camus the Sable, but General Zeke is still here. He got Est of the Whitewings out of a prison, but she's not around anymore."

Lukas realized, then, he had asked a key question to which he did not in truth know the right answer, and lacking any additional material to keep up the argument, he let Esther’s point stand.

-x-

There was one star left in the sky, and it was fading to a little white point of nothing as the horizon turned peach and gold. Esther knew she pushing Atropos to his limits, way past the point where a Macedonian knight would've traded up for a dragon, and the fact that he was putting up with all this meant a lot to her. He could’ve tossed her off, thrown her into a ditch or even into the sea, and instead he was letting her keep at it, flying him ragged every night from sunset to dawn.

"Am I fighting the current or riding it out? I don't know anymore. I just know I've got to… gotta keep going.”

Atropos answered her with a whinny and another surge of energy, and they kept flying until the sun cracked over the edge of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line of "lyric poetry" Lukas quotes is cribbed from "Membership" by The Tragically Hip, whose late and deeply lamented lyricist Gord Downey wrote many of the songs that have fueled my creative thoughts as a fanfic writer.


	7. Steadfast Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esther decides to go above and beyond the limits of duty as a Falcon Knight, even as the current of destiny strikes against the immovable object called Lukas.

“Esther?”

Lukas usually slept like the dead but she’d managed to make enough commotion to wake him. Since she couldn’t tell him it was nothing and everything was fine, she called back, “I’m all right, Lukas.”

The carpet was pretty scorched, though.

“Esther, why are you practicing fire magic at three in the morning?” 

“Um, it’s an experiment.”

“Of the sort that does explode.”

“Well, back in Archanea they told me I could’ve done magic if I wanted to, and I figured that maybe that’d be a real plus for me in battle, you know? It’s not something anyone else does.”

Lukas had his head down as he scrubbed the carpet, but now he sat back on his heels and looked up at her.

“Have you learned the expression ‘too much, too fast’?”

“Maybe.”

“Esther, I do worry about you. Flying off in the night to roust Terrors out of abandoned shrines, racing from here to the Sluice Gate on the slightest pretext to see how quickly you can make the trip, your own independent study of magic…”

She hung her head because all of that was true.

“Replacing Clair for the space of a season doesn’t demand this of you,” he finished.

“I have to, Lukas. It’s like something in me woke up and needs it. I can do this, really. I just… well, I won’t try fire magic inside anymore.”

“That’s an elementary precaution. You may be getting too little rest to think clearly, so it’s best if you put the Fire tome away and sleep.”

Esther made her apologies and climbed into her upper bunk, but she felt too hyper to sleep after making her first fireball. She knew how magic worked in Archanea, and it involved lots and lots of study and patience and things she hadn’t exactly been good at even if Bishop Wendell told her once she had the talent for it. Magic in Valentia was something else— not so much about study and more about, maybe, inviting the power into your soul.

You could feel a little bit of your life energy burn up as fire streamed between your fingers, she thought, and she held up her hand in the dark of the room, imagining it outlined by flames. 

-x-

Esther more than met her self-imposed deadline to be worthy of taking over Clair’s role. She received an official promotion to the rank of Falcon Knight weeks before Clair was set to go on leave. Lukas, on hand to witness the promotion ceremony, would have liked to join in celebrations of Esther’s accomplishments that evening but Clair insisted on showing her sister-at-arms a good time and the two Falcon Knights departed with the sunlight shining on their winged helmets.

His plans for the night suddenly open, he accepted Forsyth’s invitation to a newly-opened tavern already renowned for its warm bread topped with a blend of fine cheeses rumored to include pegasus cheese. The bread proved the most expensive thing on the bill of fare and was only baked to order, so Lukas and Forsyth had some time to sip ale and simply relax as they waited for the meal. At least Lukas relaxed, slipping into rose-tinted thoughts of how far his young companion had come since he’d spied her in the mess hall that fateful morning. Forsyth, his combat instincts honed by constant trips to the field, kept scanning the room, proved unable to let his vigilance drop even in this most unthreatening of taverns. Lukas wondered what might be concealed amid the potted ferns and tipsy artisans.

“Forsyth?”

“That’s an odd customer lurking by the rear exit.”

Lukas shifted position as subtly as possible to see this “odd customer” loitering by the wall. Tall as Forsyth but lean as a jungle cat, dressed in unremarkable traveling clothes in an unremarkable shade of dull green, he looked a level too deliberately unobtrusive for this watering hole of the well-off. If his clothing managed to catch their attention, his face-- his eyes-- held that attention fast.

“That man looks like he’s seen hell,” Forsyth observed with no particular degree of sympathy. “And not just the sort we’ve walked into.”

“Seen… hell.” In that instant, pieces of a long-standing puzzle fit together inside of his head and Lukas realized who this mystery customer must surely be. “Allow me...”

Forsyth voiced no protest as Lukas rose from the table and began to make his way toward the rear of the tavern. His lance was secured behind the tavern counter, of course, but Lukas had a dagger concealed beneath his shirt that he was bound by his honor as a knight to use only in the public good, in times of grave necessity. Perhaps this was one of those times... perhaps not.

“Abel.” The flash of shock in the other man’s green eyes let Lukas know he’d struck the mark. “Former knight of Altea, erstwhile shopkeeper, once known as the Panther.”

“I can’t deny it.” He had a light and pleasant voice to go with his once-smooth features. Abel showed a nervous smile, made a little wring of his hands-- some tic beyond his volition, no doubt. “But why has my reputation reached these shores?”

“Let us step outside.”

Balmy air and the light of a waxing crescent moon made the alley seem a place for a tryst, not a fight, but Lukas felt a cold edge of steel in his soul as he faced down the Altean. The voice of his heart was speaking to him at last and it wasn't afraid.

“If you know of me, sir…” Abel broke off with a cough. “I’ve come here in search of—”

“No.” Lukas stood with arms crossed, making full use of his frame despite his lesser height, an immovable object against the force of this fateful encounter. “The woman who exists today shares nothing but mortal blood with the girl you’re chasing. She has left every vestige of her old life behind and the worst you can possibly do is escort her back to it. If you cherish the idea that you love her, then leave.”

Abel regarded him with open-mouthed silence, which gave Lukas the opportunity to press his case.

“I can see in your face that you’re thinking ‘You cannot understand’ and let me inform you that I do understand, and daresay l understand it better than you can yourself.” 

Still Abel said nothing; perhaps he was simply not an eloquent man-- a handsome one, no doubt, before reaching his current state of the ravaged itinerant, but not especially bright, nor perceptive, nor in command of himself. As Lukas sized up this wreck of a knight he realized exactly what Clive had been trying to praise in him so long before. Whatever in him had come into the world fractured, he was immune to this, and secure in this newfound knowledge Lukas continued his assault.

“When she left you, it was neither your duty nor your obligation to follow. Do you understand?”

“Are you… are you her…”

“You've no right to inquire and I owe you no answers.” Into the fraught silence he made his ultimatum. “Abel, go home, wherever that may be, and ask of her nevermore. And should I ever catch sight of you again in Valentia, I swear on the spear I carry as a knight of this kingdom I shall have you killed.”

“You’re serious…” Abel let out a laugh then, a high desperate titter that sounded not far off from madness.

As Lukas watched this miserable creature he thought it might have been a mercy to simply end him. Had Abel so much as aimed a punch in his direction the concealed dagger would've come into play, but as it was Abel melted into the darkness, though not without giving Lukas one final plea.

“Take care of her…”

Lukas waited until he was quite certain Abel was gone. Then he smiled, because inside of him welled the most intense sensation he'd known since the battle with Duma, the sense of something inside him cut free, sailing at last beyond the edge of the known world. Some terrible symmetry deeper than the delusions of gods at last had been broken, and it'd been as simple in the end as being the right man in the right place at the appropriate hour. Lukas looked to the sky in time to see one silver star fall sparkling in a silent arc to the eastern horizon and part of him was riding with it.

“It’s been handled,” said Lukas as he slid into his waiting seat at the tavern table.

“Great. Have some cheese bread before it all gets cold.” Forsyth almost managed to keep a deadpan calm but his narrowed eyes held suspicions and questions and other things Lukas was not going to entertain at that moment.

"My, this is indeed delicious."

And that was the end of it, despite the looks Forsyth keep shooting in his direction.

-x-

“Look at me now, Lukas!”

Est of the Macedonian Whitewings wasn’t around anymore. She was Dame Esther the Harrier now, the undisputed queen of Valentian skies. Even her old uniform had to go, because Clair had picked her out a new one that was the opposite of white.

"Lukas, meet Alekto," she said of her new pegasus, because her faithful old companion was finally getting put out to pasture, set aside like her grubby headband. Alekto was black as midnight with a mane and tail like fire, and Esther knew that they’d make a terrifying sight swooping down on the battlefield. 

“Hello, Alekto,” Lukas said as he tried to scratch her ears. “I hope you don’t take offense to me.”

“I’m not really sure what to do with Atropos. In Archanea our pegasi usually get passed down from mothers to their daughters. Since I don't have one, I guess I'll lend him out to my best student. Maybe.” It didn’t really sound like a good plan to Esther, because she still didn’t know which of her students was up to it. “He kind of deserves a vacation, don't you think?”

“I think Atropos deserves at least a season to his own pleasure,” said Lukas. “He’s helped you achieve so much in so short a time.”

“Yep! I couldn’t have done all this without him or you.”

“Ah,” he said, and didn’t look exactly happy about it. “I don’t feel I’ve done enough for you of late. It seems that every time I turn around, you’ve hit some new level of excellence even as I’m up past my elbows in paperwork.” 

“I couldn't have started this without you! Besides, I really needed to finish it on my own, to make sure I know I can stand on my own two feet forever. But you never told me I was being silly except when I tried to set our room on fire. You never told me it wasn’t possible because I’m… me.”

He smiled at that, but Esther thought something still didn’t seem right. 

“Lukas, what’s wrong? Don’t feel bad, Lukas!” For a moment she felt like a kid again, felt like she’d upset someone and didn’t understand how or why.

“I am envisioning an arrow going clear through your unprotected sternum,” said Lukas, at he pointed to the _very_ low neckline of the tight black outfit she had on. “That is… most impractical.”

“Ah, heh heh. Clair wanted me to look stunning today. I think she’s kind of jealous she can’t fit into something like this right now. Don’t worry, Lukas, I’m not going to fly into battle all, um, exposed.”

It’d be nice to get into her old clothes again, really. All the same, Esther didn’t think she’d be tying her white headband back on any time soon. Instead she pinned it to the board of memories, where it looked worn-out and sad among the newer, brighter ribbons. 

-x-

Life with Esther was now akin to living at five times one’s normal pace. Lukas noticed the first of the year’s swallows perched under the eaves of the castle’s main gate not long after Flostym gave way to Avistym.

“You’re many a week ahead of your fellows, I’m afraid. I hope you can survive until the others arrive.” 

It hadn’t even been a year since Esther herself arrived like a forlorn swallow. Lukas didn’t need long ponder as to what the next Esther-related surprise would be, as it caught up to him very afternoon.

“Lukas!” She was waiting for him at their apartment, accompanied by a plate of gaily frosted cakes. Esther hadn’t a moment to spare for baking in at least a season.

“What a pleasant surprise.”

“Yeah, well, it’s to sweeten the blow of the bad surprise,” she said, no longer so reluctant to deal out hard truths. “I can't teach with you next term, either."

“Ah.” He couldn’t say he didn’t expect that. The Harrier proved too valuable in the field to spend her days cooped up among new squires.

“Yeah, Queen Celica’s given me a special assignment!”

“Is she sending you overseas?” 

Some part of him expected that also, and dreaded it, because such a mission given too soon might undo everything that had gone into making Esther over the course of a remarkable year. He felt relief as Esther shook her head at the suggestion.

“I’m going to King Jesse’s place on a... um, it’s like an exchange program? He's lending Celica one of his top mercenaries and once Clair's back on active duty I'll be going to Jesse’s."

Lukas no longer felt relief. He wasn’t sure what he felt—apprehension, perhaps. Something about Jesse’s outsized personalty always needled Lukas. It wasn’t fair to think a man had questionable morals simply because he made lewd comments to Mila statues, as Python had done worse in his time and Lukas would feel no trace of discomfort had Esther announced she was planning to join Python’s militia, but Lukas could not let go of the sense that Jesse was somehow…

Dangerous? Really, it made no sense. 

His conflict must have been all too visible, for Esther then said, “Aw, he’s a really sweet guy. He got captured trying to rescue me from Grieth, you know.”

“I was not aware of it.”

“Yeah, I’m glad you didn’t see me back then. I didn’t handle any of it very well.” Esther shook her head at the idea of her former self.

“Yes, I’m sure your talents will more than repay King Jesse for any inconvenience he suffered.”

"Jesse's nice," she said again, and it echoed like a warning bell.

Unwilling to discuss any more of King Jesse, Lukas said, “I suppose I'll need to move back to my old quarters.”

“Oh no, I talked to Clive about that and he wants to you keep this place 'til I get back. He's gotten it into his head we oughta get married and he doesn't want to discourage you.”

She said it with that peculiar disarming smile that let her get away with things, though in truth it was an enviable gift, her ability to sum up the foolishness of everyone's hopes and fears in one sentence.

-x-

Esther began to pack for her journey a few effects at a time, as she claimed it’d be too sad and tiring to do it all at once. Each day another scrap of her disappeared from the their living space, and Lukas found his own possessions spread to fill the absence as easily as water flowed from one pool to the next. This method of packing became justified in retrospect, as Esther was almost ready to travel by the day Clair announced her early return to duty; the skies, it would seem, called to her more loudly than did domestic bliss.

“Guess I’m shipping out right after the Festival of Birds,” said Esther. “That’s okay, though. It means I'll be back in time for the festival next year. We can’t miss seeing that together.”

“That sounds like something to anticipate with pleasure.”

Some of Esther's mementos remained yet on the beribboned board, among them the strip of white cloth that once held back her short hair, but one memento in particular was something Lukas didn't want keeping him company.

“Well, Esther the Harrier, I don’t think you need her anymore.”

As he took the card of the Lionhearted Princess off the board, a second card concealed beneath it slipped out and landed facedown upon the floor. Lukas, truly surprised by this card-trick of the universe, could only stare at it.

“Esther?”

“When you didn’t want your fortune told and you walked away the creepy man suggested I pick a card for you. And then you were so upset about fortune-telling that I figured I’d better hide it.”

“Hide it? It wasn’t a good idea to even take something from that man.”

“I wanted to know.” Her eyes radiated innocence— innocence in the sense of being guiltless of guile or design by grace of having no knowledge of guile itself. “I thought she might help me find my way… and back when we watched the birds the first time you kinda indicated you didn’t really know where you were coming or going either, so…”

“So you thought I might also need a signpost.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. We did not know one another so well then, so you would not have known my reluctance in deferring to... signposts.”

It was, after all, this invincible innocence that her sisters had cherished in their own ways despite their flaws in handling her. Something in Esther remained yet untouched despite three wars and a failed marriage and all that followed. Perhaps having power, in a way the Est of old never had known, would erode it. Perhaps it was some form of carelessness and would endure the way carelessness did. He didn’t mind it, though. He hoped it would at least survive the inhospitable land of Jesse.

“Yeah, well… about that,” she said now.

“Hm?”

"You taught me not to ask some kinds of questions unless I knew the answer, but the flip side to it is that, sometimes when you do know the answer, the question doesn't need to be asked anymore. You just… live with it inside of you.”

“That we do,” he said, and felt that at last they understood one another.

-x-

The swallows arrived right on time, which was just as well because the entire castle was waiting for them. Esther stood with Lukas on the ramparts underneath the river of birds, so close that she knew Clair would be getting ideas about them again, even though every time Clair tried to push them together it didn’t happen the way Clair expected it to. Maybe by the time she got back from Jesse’s place that Clair would leave it alone, but in the meantime Esther decided she didn’t care because this close to Lukas, she didn’t feel alone.

“Hey…”

“Mm?”

“Thank you for helping me piece my heart back together instead of breaking it again,” she said as the sunset painted the underwings of the swallows so they almost sparkled.

“Thank you for allowing me to witness you becoming everything you are… and were ever supposed to be,” he said.

Esther leaned against him, feeling the warmth of the summer evening and the last of the day’s light folding around them both. It was so very nice to be held by someone who just wanted her to be the best that she could, in her own time, whether he could keep up or not.

“Hey! Maybe next year, when I'm back from Jesse's place, we can take a holiday and follow the birds? Find out where they’re going to!”

“I’d like that,” he said slowly. “But… how would I follow you there?”

“You know, Atropos has years left in him. He likes you more than he likes most people, and he’s stronger than he looks…”

“There's never been…"

And she knew exactly what he was going to say.

"In Macedon everyone starts out with a Pegasus. Everyone.” Even the fiercest Dragoons. Even Prince Michalis. “It’ll work.”

“Then in your absence I’ll apply myself to mastering flight, since Atropos has chosen to accept me,” said Lukas.

"We'll take to the skies together and follow the current wherever it takes us. No prophecies, no signposts…”

Esther the Harrier, queen of Valentia's skies, stood in the embrace of her friend and vowed to follow the call of her heart into the darkness or daylight, fire or air.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roundup of references: Just as Atropos is one of the three Fates of classical Greek myth, Alekto is one of the three Furies or the Erinyes.
> 
> The chapter title is a reference to Abel's character ending in FE11, not that he is the companion being referred to in this context.
> 
> The tavern that the boys visit is basically a hipster bar, or the equivalent thereof from a few decades back aka burger joints decked out with ferns.
> 
> There is no in-universe explanation for the horridness of the Harrier costume so I'll blame Clair's attempt to get Lukas to notice Esther.
> 
> And yes, Esther blossoming into an OP unit via relentless grinding is a wink at her entire archetype as seen since the birth of the franchise.
> 
> PS: I guess the Jesse angle reared its head again anyway OOPS.

**Author's Note:**

> We know Est has a male pegasus thanks to FE12 but we don't know his name.
> 
> If you haven't played/watched the Rise of the Deliverance DLC and the supports it unlocks, check it out. They're some of the best supports in the game and this 'fic uses them as a reference point.


End file.
